Twisted Sisters

Twisted Sisters - 2B, 4B, & 8B graphite; compressed black charcoal, and white charcoal drawing on paper

The body of work I have created for my art class. I am yet to receive a mark. The concept behind these drawings are self-image, how one presents themselves, and how other people can distort that image. This is not in any way related to body image.

Breaking It Down

(compressed black charcoal, white charcoal, 2B, 4B & 8B graphite on paper)

I made this for my body of work on the human body - hahaha, a play on words - at school. I have a couple more to do yet. But this is the first completed one. I'll be mounting it on black card. I've cropped this image digitally to what I want it to like like, but I'll have to cut it in real life.

The concept of this image deals with misinterpretation of who a person is / what they stand for. This is a distort external self, that everyone sees. This is not about body image or anorexia or whatever. This is about self worth.

Ink and Graphite

Soul Comes Out - ink & pen in VAPD

I'm really loving working with ink and pen lately. I've also rediscovered my passion for graphite drawings.

This first ink drawing was an impulsive drawing and I think it was influenced by those face mugs you see around. Revolting things they are.

Abstract Female Form - 2B, 4B & 8B graphite in VAPD

This second drawing is more or less inspired once again by the armless "Venus di Milo", and Brett Whiteley, and many of my previous odd nude drawings. It's not finished yet, but I'm doing a series of works similar to this for a body of work at school: I think. I've not decided yet. If I do, I think they'll be a mixed media work.

The world seems a little better since I got my muse back :)

Inks & Lino

Just a quick update. I'm rather glad, you see, as I'm beginning to find a bit of inspiration again. Hoorah! This Queen's Birthday long weekend has been going quite well.

Pen & ink experiment.

On Saturday Mum and I went into Newcastle to buy some art supplies. One of the new goodies I bought was an ink nib and pen to work with at home. I've always had an interest in inks, but it wasn't until this year at school that I developed one for pen & ink. I'd only ever used brush & ink. A totally different method really does alter the image you create. I'm having fun working with cross-hatching. It's a strange way to shade, but it's growing on me. The ink drawing above was something I crafted this morning, just randomly. A quick sketch, and then it was inked.

Lino print equipment.

I also bought some lino printing materials: silk-cut linoleum squares (30 x 30 cm), block ink, lino carving tools, and rollers. I really should have made a point of buying some paper while I was there. It took me until we arrived home at 4pm that day (we did make a point of staying in town all day) to realise my 11 x 14 " VAPD would be large enough to print on. Silly, silly illy.

In addition to all of these I got some charcoals: willow and compressed. I've never had proper charcoal at home for drawing, so that's really nice too.

I've suddenly got a lot more motivation and inspiration on the art front. Part of it, I think, is staring the Day Zero Project; in which I will attempt to complete 101 preset tasks in 1001 days. My blog that will be journalling my challenge and all it entails is located here.

Things are going alright :)

"Venus" Coloured

Linocut print & oil pastels

We were told to colour one of the poorer prints we made in class with out linocuts. So I got out the oil pastels. I think I'm going to touch up the yucky bits that didn't print good with some black paint.

I've had to cut some of the prints to fit them in my VAPD.

I'm going out to buy my own lino squares and carving tools today, as I've mentioned before, I'm quite fond of this medium.

"Venus" Linocut Print

Linocut print 2 /3 (so far). Approx 30 x 30 cm.

In my art class at school we have been creating artworks that revolve around the human body. One task we have had to complete recently is designing our own simple linocut prints of a size of approx 30 square cm (1 square foot); obviously featuring the body or body parts.

I researched Linocut printing on Wikipedia and apparently it's a modern and cheaper adaptation of the comparatively ancient woodcut printing. So there you go. It's an altered ancestor.

I'm truly sorry that this has nothing to do with one of my beloved oldies, it's simply that at a time like this - one when I've got no inspiration - when I still want to participate in IMT I have to twist things a bit. I think this printmaking exercise has really combatted my creative block.

I love lino printing now. It's awesome fun. The designing, carving the block, inking and printing. Well. I love it all except for the cuts I've gotten on my hands from my own stupidity at times. Hem-hem. I really want to keep making lino prints. I'm going to Eckersley's to buy my own pieces of linoleum and some carving tools, block ink and rollers. AND good paper, of course.

This is one of the best prints I've gotten thus far from the linocut I've designed. Print number 2 / 3... thus far. It's inspired by the Venus di Milo.

Ruined!

Ink & pen on paper

The original photograph I took this from was from one of those ads by Dove for "anti-aging" cremes and stuff. Basically, they don't photoshop the models and etc.

As part of art at school we're doing the human body. I'm out of class for a week or so, this was left on the drying rack and some year 8 kid/idiot decides to draw something just LOVELY on the back of this.

I don't have any opposition to phalic elements in art, but it totally ruined my ink work and I was forced to abandon it. GRRR. I covered it up with a package of mix CDs my friend made me for my birthday :)

To be honest, I'm guessing it was a male. There just seems to be something with boys at that age where they draw dicks all over everything. It's never really girls. The guys just seem to do it, and whatever they draw isn't necessarily a glorifying depiction haha.

Long story short: I'm pissed off, and off school again for this second time this month with a tummy bug (before it was a viral cold). So who knows what else of my work is being destroyed by the little non-elective-art vandals.

The Body

A new term, a new topic. In art we are now studying - of all things - the BODY. Now, being the sort of artist who frequently illustrates bodies, as you can imagine: I was enthralled. I found that I had to get a new VAPD (art journal / sketchbook) to use this term, as my old one only has maybe 5 pages left.

Today we were asked to begin drawing a particular gesture using our hands and fingers. Although being a senior class, our teacher still had to tell us not to use any *hem hem* "rude" gestures. I haven't finished my drawing yet, but I will do it over the weekend. I enjoy drawing the joints and nails and all the hand bits.

6B pencil in new school VAPD

Our teacher has also been setting us some still life work: statuettes and dolls. Appropriating a statuette of the woman in Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", I drew this:

Willow charcoal, "synthetic" compressed charcoal & white charcoal on art paper.

I just know that I am going to love this term in Visual Arts. We're also studying video in Photography now, which is going to be good. At the moment we're watching "The Seventh Seal". I can't wait till we begin making our own films. It should be interesting :)

Family

Graphite in VAPD. "Dishes". Sorry about the glare :)

IMT: Family
I think that one of my favourite things to express in my art is gender roles and issues, specifically those involving women. And of course women face the issue of having a family, and then there is the problem of her role in the family.

I think that this is an attack on the ancient views of what a women should be: a beauty queen who can cook, clean, and will make babies and silently raise them - all without protest. Nothing more and nothing less. No thoughts, no opinions, no discussion. This image depicts the strong woman as she sees herself, but with the added voids that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers would have seen.

I completed this drawing about a week ago, but I feel it is very much appropriate for the theme of "Family".

Just for the record:
Personally, I have nothing against stay-at-home wives and mothers, so long as it was HER decision and she knows that she is able to do whatever she wants - without being ruled over by a dictatoral husband.

I'm actually rather pleased today because I received my school VAPD diary mark - which is a form of assessment - during today's art lesson. I got 93/100 :)

Venus Figurine

B & 4B pencil in VAPD

This week's Inspire Me Thursday prompt is "Umbrella".

Now, being the person that I am, I instantly thought of "Umbrella Terms" for some reason. I thought about what I understood this particular phrase to mean, and after doing a little research I found that I was correct. An "umbrella term" is a word used to describe a collective of similar objects or phenomena.

Being a member of the iGeneration - or Gen Y - I was bound to use Wikipedia for my "research". That's when I stumbled across a link and an umbrella term for a range of miniature prehistoric statues that depicted obese or pregnant women - "The Venus Figurines".

This drawing is an image not disimilar to any of the Venus Figurines. It too depicts the primal beauty of a voluptuous or pregnant female. This is an 'umbrella image', if you will.

Earth Mama

Watercolour pencil in VAPD, A4 size

Inspired by the IMT prompt: "Green". There's a little bit of glare from the scanner.

I know, strange interpretation.

And a strange prompt, actually. All these events in regards to the environment have been popping up in my life lately, and all within a period of less than five days:

Cleaning my room (well, that was a conscious decision) and consequently filling garbage bag after garbage bag with paper for recycling; a random entry for the Waste As Art competition through the mail, and then IMT has a prompt that in honour of Earth Day that will be occuring this week (April 22). I honestly never knew it was going to be Earth Day this coming Wednesday, which is why I am quite freaked out.

I wonder what the world has in store for me with all these hints.

Drawing

Buddha-inspired - 4B graphite on art paper (in my school VAPD)

Nude - 4B graphite on art paper (in my school VAPD)

Here are some drawings I've done quite recently. The first is inspired by Buddhas and the second by Brett Whiteley's elongated paintings, drawings and sculptures of the female form.

At the moment I'm feeling most comfortable in drawing. It's always been something I've done since I was a little kid and I've noticed myself starting to shy away from painting and focusing mainly on this particular medium. I feel that I can get the most expression and my best technical ability out of graphites and pencils. Anything that I can do darrrrrk. I'm not aiming to portray a subject with photograph-like quality - that's what we've got photographs for, after all - but rather with a more distorted quality.


I really like cubism, and in particular, the 'soft' cubism works of Tamara de Lempicka really interest me. I supposed you could pick that in the first image. By the way, speaking of the amazing Australian artist Brett Whiteley (1939 - 1992), yesterday I went to my regional art gallery and saw an exhibition which showed his various 'periods'. It was really quite inspiring. We also saw ArtExpress at the same gallery, which focused on HSC students from my area which was very interesting. We saw an array of works in all different mediums - painting, mixed media, sculpture, ceramics, graphics, video. It was a pretty damn good day as a matter of fact.

Works in Progress

Just an update of works I'm completing at the moment... two works, portraits as a matter of fact.

The top series is of a woman, which demonstrates illness, self image, self worth and all those lovely things in the disfigured body she possess. It originally started as a very yellow colour and then I did it over, changing the brushstrokes realising that otherwise she'd look like she had scales. It's nowhere near finished, many elements of the face (ie: nose, chin, lips, forehead, the whole other side of the face) need to be completed, in addition to the rest of her abdomen and flailing limbs. I feel it's turning out well and I am having a great time making it :)

I'm undecided as to whether I should alter the background or not. I like that the gray tones add a feeling of isolation and entrapment.

The next two, below, show a portrait I'm working on. Feeling inspired by Tamara de Lempicka's soft cubism, I thought I'd try and adapt it in my style. We'll see how this turns out.

Good Old Visual Arts :)

"The Duchess", mixed media on cardboard

Ah, the first Visual Arts topic/project of the term. Basically we were instructed to collect items over a weekend, just like Andy Warhol, and thus create a mixed media work out of our garbage. I collected all sorts of goodies I found around our house and swapped little pieces from my own pile of crap with friends.

I didn't want to make the sort of pretty things most of the other students in the class were bound to create. Pretty isn't for me. I have a male teacher this year, and being the sort of "artiste" I am, it's a little troubling describing the meaning of my works to him. This is about the sex trade, how violated women go on to sell themselves just so they can survive day to day. The title, The Duchess, comes from finding a ticket to the film of the same name starring Kiera Knightley and Ralph Fiennes which was released in 2008.

I got 10/10, and the same score for a graphite drawing of it which I may post later.

A run through of the crap on this piece of cardboard:
Acrylic paint, a random doll I found at an op-shop (thrift store) I found about a month ago, a piece of foam from a box of soft pastels, an old tape I used to interview a veterinarian for an assignment last year, a holiday photograph, a poem from an old Moon Diary, a paper heart I peeled off the box of a Christmas present, a Joker card, an empty packet of pills, the wrapper for dissolvable paracetamol tablets, Band-Aid packaging, movie ticket, an magazine advertisement for the TV show True Blood, cut-out pictures of meat from Woolworths weekly special brochures, a brochure about customer privacy from FoneZone, and an old makeup sponge. And glue.

Sorry for the crappy photo as per usual. I think I need a better camera. I'm also studying 'Photography, Video and Digital Imaging' in addition to Visual Arts and so I think that'd be quite beneficial. Might post some of my new photos up too :)